WMS Gaming is a slot machine, video lottery, casino software and online slot game manufacturer that first started life in 1943 as part of Williams Manufacturing Company. Williams first started making pinball titles and arcade games. By 1994 they had entered the slot machine market. WMS Gaming, as part of WMS Industries, was purchased in 2013 by Scientific Games Corporation.
WMS gaming have been responsible for many industry innovations and hit slot games. These started with its licensing of the Monopoly franchise and subsequent release of many licensed titles off the back of their success with Monopoly.
These include Clue, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Men in Black, Hollywood Squares and the Wizard of Oz. The company also further innovated slot machine design, first with its breakout title, Reel ‘em In, then with its custom CPU-NXT hardware and its Bluebird custom gaming cabinet series.
WMS gaming is a global manufacturer, but they are based in the United States, with 70% of their revenue being generated in the Unites States. They have development sales and service offices in the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Africa, Mexico, India, China and many other countries.
WMS Gaming Licensing
WMS gaming had its first hit cabinets after 1996 with the release of Reel ‘em In, Jackpot Party, Boom and Filthy Rich. They built on this success by releasing many licensed titles that included unique progressive jackpots.
They also used a unique licensing agreement called Participation Slots, where they leased their cabinets to live casinos, rather than selling the cabinets. In this way they could save on production costs be reclaiming old equipment and they could also include a service contract to maintain the slot machines while leased by the casino. This shrewd business tactic not only provides a stable financial platform for WMS, but it also provides the best customer support to their casino clients.
WMS Gaming Game Play Innovations
WMS Gaming introduced a Facebook slot application themed around a cruise ship titled Lucky Cruise. This application incorporates social media and social gaming to keep the slot play interesting and fun.
This title was developed in conjunction with Large Animal Games. This move was the next logical step after they introduced the G+ video slot cabinets, which allowed the company to move into online gaming after 2010, offering gambling on desktops as well as mobile devices.
WMS Gaming Cabinet Innovations
Like cricket betting is attracting to NZ punters, WMS Gaming first caught the attention of the casino industry with their Transmissive Reels gaming platform which used video animations combined with traditional mechanical slot reels. This cabinet was inspired by their custom made CPU-NXT2 software platform that grew out of the cheap market price of computer components at the time of the cabinet’s inception.
The CPU-NXT series of cabinets used Pentium 4 processors, 3D-graphics chips sets and up to 2 gig of RAM along with a 40 Gig hard drive to bring an unprecedented quality to slot cabinets of the time.
The cream of the crop however is the Bluebird2 gaming cabinet that included 22 inch HD displays, Bose sound systems and was introduced in 2008. This was followed up by the Blade and Gamefield cabinets in 2013, before the purchase of WMS by Scientific Games Corporation.